GUEST COLUMN: Jewish citizens not responsible for former temple

Hattie Kaufman

Published: Saturday, July 20, 2013 at 3:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Friday, July 19, 2013 at 6:13 p.m.

Rebecca LaMoreaux is certainly entitled to argue for her family’s right to sell the property on the 2600 block of University Boulevard for redevelopment (My Turn, July 14). In so doing, however, she should be more thoughtful in her choice of targets for scorn.

In her recent op-ed piece, we believe LaMoreaux has suggested that the Jewish community of Tuscaloosa acted less than honorably in this matter. She complains that no one was interested in preservation of any of the properties on the block before the sale of the entire block was completed —”not the Jewish community for a beloved temple.”

Indeed, one of the buildings on that block, 2624 University Boulevard, was the first formal home for the Jewish congregation in Tuscaloosa. The congregation sold it in 1958.

The facts are that the building, now owned by P.E. LaMoreaux & Associates, was severely damaged in the April 15, 2011 tornado. After the city issued a demolition order, the LaMoreaux family approached the Jewish community and Temple Emanu-El to ask us to pay to repair what had long been their commercial building.

The LaMoreaux company had chosen not to insure the property, and they were looking for another source of funds for the reconstruction. There was no suggestion that the Jewish community would be given any interest in the building; it would remain completely a LaMoreaux property.

Temple Emanu-El is a very small congregation, and the amount they were asking us to give them came to a very significant portion of the Temple’s total annual budget. Their request was denied. We wrote the following letter to James LaMoreaux on Nov. 1:

“The Temple Emanu-El board met on Oct. 28th, 2012, and discussed your verbal request to assist with the rehabilitation of the original Temple building at 2624 University Boulevard.

“The LaMoreaux firm has owned this building for several decades. Now, 18 months following the tornado of April 2011, you are faced with a demolition order from the city.

“Temple Emanu-El cares about its history, and regrets the damage and subsequent deterioration from neglect of your building. However, our congregation does not have the resources to repair your property.

“We hope that PELA will find those resources through normal business channels.”

Emanu-El has not owned or used the property at 2624 University Boulevard for over half a century. At the present time, only two current members of the Temple attended services there, in their youth. There is neither an emotional nor a sentimental attachment to the building.

In the ensuing years the Jewish community has been housed in several other properties. One property, on Bryant Drive, is now used by Calvary Baptist Church; another, on Skyland Boulevard, is the home of the Alabama School for the Deaf and Blind. In 2010, we moved into our current home. We are enormously proud of our new temple building, on the University of Alabama campus.

The Jewish community, as a group, has never expressed an

opinion about the LaMoreaux family’s planned use of the property on the 2600 block of University Boulevard. While some of our members may support or oppose the sale of the block, they do so as individuals, not as representatives of the Temple. We feel that this fact makes her singling out our community all the more inappropriate.

On a wall in our library, we display pictures of our history in Tuscaloosa. While we treasure the historic photographs we have of the congregation in front of the building in the early 1900s, our congregation is not a building; it is a religious community of people.

In sum, the LaMoreaux family and its company, P.E. LaMoreaux & Associates, acquired a property and used it for many decades for commercial purposes. This is a company that does business nationally and internationally. Despite this, the company made the risky choice not to insure its property.

Their request for the Jewish community to provide funds to rebuild a structure in which it has had no interest (beyond the historical) for many decades was denied. We feel Ms. LaMoreaux was unfairly critical of the Jewish community of Tuscaloosa, for failing to bail the family out of its current dilemma.

Hattie Kaufman is the co-

president of Temple Emanu-El of Tuscaloosa. Co-president Anna J. Singer contributed to this column.

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